Page 32 of His Mate

“Where are we?” I asked, my voice still thick with sleep.

“About fifteen miles from the city,” he replied, turning the stick over the fire again, the venison sizzling in the heat. “Deep enough in the forest that the wolves won’t track us here. At least not for a while.”

I nodded, the reality of it settling over me like a blanket. “How long was I out?”

“Almost a day,” he said, glancing back at the meat, testing it with his finger. “You needed the rest. Your body’s been through a lot.”

I looked at him, really looked at him, and saw the exhaustion etched into his features, the dark circles under his eyes, the lines of tension that hadn’t quite faded.

“And what about you?” I asked, my voice softer now. “Have you rested at all?”

He smirked, shaking his head. “I don’t need as much sleep as you do.” There was a flicker of something in his eyes then, something almost playful, and it sent a strange warmth spreading through my chest. “Besides, I had to catch us breakfast.”

“Venison?” I asked, wrinkling my nose.

He chuckled, tearing a small piece of meat off the skewer, and holding it out to me.

“You’ll eat it,” he said, “or you’ll go hungry. Your choice.”

I took it, the warmth of his fingers brushing against mine for just a second before he pulled away, and I brought the meat to my mouth, chewing slowly. It was surprisingly tender, the flavor rich and smoky, and I realized just how hungry I was. I hadn’t eaten properly in days, and the taste of something real, and more than anything, somethingwarm, was almost overwhelming.

“You hunted this?” I asked between bites.

He nodded, a faint smile playing on his lips. “I’ve been hunting in these woods for a long time.”

I frowned, tilting my head. “How long is a long time?”

He hesitated, as if weighing how much to reveal, and then sighed.

“Over two hundred years,” he said quietly, the words dropping between us like stones in a pool of water.

I stared at him, my mind struggling to process what he’d just said. “Two hundred years? You… you’re serious?”

“As serious as the day I took my first breath,” he replied, meeting my gaze without a trace of humor.

“That would mean you’re over two hundred years old,” I whispered, trying to wrap my mind around how that could be possible and he cleared his throat as he nodded slowly.

“I was one of the first wolves—the virus hit me before anyone knew what it was. We didn’t understand it then, didn’t know it would change us, that it would twist us into something that couldn’t die in the way humans do. It gave me strength, speed, and healing—but it also froze me in time. I stopped aging, or at least, I age very slowly.”

“Two hundred years…” I repeated, still trying to really take this information in. “What was it like back then? Before all of this?”

He leaned back, his eyes drifting to the fire as if searching for something in the flickering flames. “I came from a time before the Collapse, a time before everything fell apart. The world was… different. Bigger, in a way. More complicated, but also so full of life.” He paused, as if trying to find the right words. “We had cities, massive structures that reached for the sky. Millions of people packed into them, living their lives, moving so quickly that they barely stopped to breathe. And then, almost overnight, it all started to unravel.”

“The Collapse,” I whispered, the word heavy on my tongue.

He nodded. “When the virus spread, no one took it seriously at first. It was just another illness, something people thought they could beat with medicine and technology. But it changed. It mutated. People started to shift, to transform into wolves like me—but they weren’t like me. They were feral, uncontrolled. They turned on their families, their friends, tore through thecities like a wildfire. It didn’t matter if you were rich, powerful, or lived in the slums. The virus didn’t discriminate. It devoured everyone.”

I swallowed hard, trying to picture it. “What about the government? Didn’t they try to do something?”

“Oh, they tried,” Rowan said with a bitter chuckle. “Martial law, quarantines, camps for those who were infected. But they didn’t understand what they were up against. The virus wasn’t just a disease—it was a force of nature, something that couldn’t be contained by walls or soldiers. As more people turned, chaos erupted. There were riots, wars over food and water, entire cities burned to the ground. The wolves took control because there was no one left strong enough to stop them. And by the time anyone realized that the virus wasn’t going to disappear, it was already too late.”

“And you…?” I hesitated, trying to form the question that burned on my tongue. “What did you do during all of that?”

Rowan’s eyes darkened, and for a moment, I saw something flicker there, something haunted. “I fought. I tried to protect the people I cared about. But when the world is collapsing around you, when everyone you love is either dead or turned into a monster, you start to wonder what the point is. So, I did the only thing I knew how to do—I survived.”

He fell silent, and I watched him, taking in the hard lines of his jaw, the way the firelight danced in his eyes, turning them molten. He’d seen so much, lived through so much history, and yet here he was, sitting beside me in a world that had forgotten what it meant to be whole.

“I’m sorry,” I said softly.

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